The final paper is worth 20% of the grade and is due on the last day of class (January 14), though you are welcome to submit earlier.
The paper needs a focus, so it helps if you have a research question that your paper will be answering. This will help make sure your paper doesn’t turn into a mere accumulation of facts or a book report.
Here is a (growing) list of topics:
English dictionaries (this is pretty broad)
Pejoration
English punctuation through the ages
History of swearing in English
English in the Gulf region/Kuwait (this is trickier than it looks).
Competition between English and at least one other language for supremacy (French, German, Latin, Dutch).
The relationship between standard English and its varieties in at least one country (for example, Scotland, England, Jamaica, South Africa).
Pick an author who wrote before 1900. Describe how the writer exploits and reflects/rejects the linguistic resources they had at their disposal.
Identify and interpret denotations and connotations of a word (and related words).
A history of the possessive case and related misuse of the apostrophe in English from 1600.
Examine the treatment of accents in a set of films, videos, radio excerpts, or other oral medium. You might choose a set of related works (e.g. the most recent Disney videos), or two or three movies set outside the US (Out of Africa, for instance, was set in Africa, and had characters speaking in a range of accents to represent certain things about their origins or geographic location; in some Daffy Duck cartoons set in France, the characters speak English with a “French” accent). What sorts of characters have what sort of accent? What sorts of conclusions does this lead viewers toward? What are the roots/causes of such conclusions? What language attitudes are embedded in these films or videos or radio spots?
A topic of your own choice, but I must approve a half page proposal that includes a bibliography of at least 2-3 sources. You cannot write on a topic you’ve already presented on.
Standard MLA format (1″ margins, 12 point font). Length: 5-7 pages (including works cited).
At least four sources, of which at least two must be scholarly, academic ones